Pred's favorite sammiches

Wow. Dr. J finally coming out with something he knows even a smidgeon about. This is important news, and I'll keep it simple.

We all know that a low cholesterol, specifically LDL, reduces risk of heart disease. Really, for the last 1 or 2 decades, the main focus has been on the cholesterol level itself, solely. Could we really eat what we wanted to and get away with it, despite our cholesterol level being normal on a drug? For all we knew, yeah...basically. High fat diets had been shown to be associated with colon and breast cancer, but hey, as far as the heart is concerned, I'll just stick to the Lipitor and eat what I want, right?

I always had a sense that wasn't true, based on basic physiology. And you all probably had the sense that eating the noxiious deep fried shat was bad for you irregardless. Everyone's guilty of denial, myself included. It's so easy to stop by McDonald's and grab a McMuffin....I even know a Cardiologist that ate McDonalds as part of a high protein/fat way of losing weight.

However, a recent study (layman article--http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/85/98779.htm?action=related_link suggests otherwise. Primarily that in the immediate time period after eating this stuff (McMuffin and hashbrown death oval) multiple inflammatory proteins and free radicals appear.

Why is this important? Well, not surprisingly, "everything's about inflammation" these days in Endocrinology, Cardiology and Nephrology. Cholesterol levels are still emphasized, but it is now known that the genesis of an atherosclerotic plaque requires both elevated cholesterol AND an inflammatory event with damage to the cells lining the walls of the vessel. Endo guys are now looking at Apo(a) and dense, atherogenic LDL rather than total cholesterol and the whole paradigm of dyslipidemia is likely to change soon.

Basically, after damage to the wall of the vessel, cholesterol 'desposits', so to speak, in the deeper wall, followed by the immigration of specific white cells called macrophages which engulf the cholesterol, rupture and spill cytokines, inflammatory proteins and free radicals.

This is primarily why smoking causes severe vascular disease....activated arylamines are absorbed into the bloodstream and cause widespread damage...vascular, kidney (cancer), bladder (cancer), lung (cancer), etc.

Hope that wasn't too heavy. I just felt that it was highly applicable and would do a lot of good. I know I'll think twice about eating the stuff from now on.

Caveats? 1) no control group. How do we know Broccoli doesn't stimulate the same, and that this is a normal phenomenon of eating. 2) No other foods were studied, which is unfortunate. I'd like to know what pizza does. :laugh:

Stunned? Must be a lot of McDonald's fans out there...lol :laugh:

Exactly Walt. The study (as many medical studies are) was meant to determine HOW it's damaging (as you know)--some of us, including all scientists working at NASA (failed O-Ring @ booster fuel tank .) and others need to know WHY or HOW under all silly circumstances. I would consider the HOW/WHY of fastfood to be really helpful from an epidemiologic standpoint. We're talking millions dead vs 13 on a Space Shuttle. We're talking BILLIONs and billions of healthcare dollars on cardiovascular disease. We're talking millions on a study to determine how 2 O-rings failed, and probably very little NIH money for this small study on food. :think:

Perhaps enough of these studies PROVING cause and effect and they'll affect fastfood activity from a public health standpoint. I doubt it, as the spirit of Capitalism is stronger, but you never know.

Remember that the other possible outcome of the study could have been that there were no changes pre/post. What significance would we have there?